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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — More baby boomers are retiring while still paying mortgages — and some
expect to make house payments into their 90s, mortgage brokers and financial planners say.

It’s part of a trend: Many current and future retirees are opting not to follow the traditional
advice to pay off their homes before their last day at work so they will have lower expenses in
retirement.

“It’s a very hot topic,” said Howard Dvorkin, founder of Consolidated Credit Counseling
Services, which is seeing more seniors grappling with large debt loads, including mortgages. In the
past two decades, seniors have increasingly retired while still making house payments, Dvorkin
said.

Seniors usually are the ones who own their homes outright because they have had more time to pay
off mortgages. But some mortgage-paying retirees are well-off and want to keep their money in
better-paying investments, financial planners say.

In fact, financial planner Anderson Wozny, whose firm has offices in Boca Raton, Fla., and
Miami, recommends that clients who are retired keep making their monthly payments. “A mortgage is a
valuable tool,” he said, because it allows retirees to keep cash on hand to pay for home repairs
and other emergencies. Many homeowners have gotten into trouble after plowing their savings into
paying off their homes, he said. “Then they don’t have money.”

Boca Raton financial planner Mari Adam said a mortgage can work out for some retirees, including
those with large government or corporate pensions who need a federal tax break.

Other boomers are opting to refinance to snag historically low interest rates that in some cases
are lower than last year’s 3.6 percent inflation rate.

Stuart Kaplan, 64, is trying to get a new 30-year loan on his Sunrise, Fla., home. He would like
to cut almost in half his interest rate of 6.625 percent.

But his current lender and others that Kaplan has contacted tell him he has to wait until he has
two years of federal tax returns showing he has been paid as a contract worker. Kaplan has only one
year: He signed a contract to work for a company after he lost a job.

“It stinks,” Kaplan said. “I have high credit scores — I’ve paid my bills even when I was out of
work for a year.”

Still, Kaplan is resigned to waiting about five months for a second tax return.

Some boomers feel they have no choice but to refinance after losing jobs during the Great
Recession. Refinancing helps keep them from having to dip into retirement savings.

“People become concerned about cash flow,” said William B. Stronge, an economics professor
emeritus at Florida Atlantic University who has about six years left on his mortgage. It makes
better economic sense, Stronge said, to keep paying on the mortgage to avoid credit-card debt.